Wilf Wild 1937 said:
Blue Streak said:
And yet those crowds of 17-19k etc were quite high compared to some others in the country at the time. Leeds often had 11-12k for home games, Chelsea pulled regular crowds of around 8,000 and even a Birmingham derby at Villa Park was played infront of around 11,000 at the time. Football had gone through a truly dark period. Only really the Rags, Everton, Liverpool and Spurs could only get more than 30k on a regular basis. Even Arsenal struggled at times.
You are right about our gates being quite high at the time. I used to have an analysis of every clubs LOWEST LEAGUE ATTENDANCE during
the '80s and the results were staggering. I remember United were top with 23,000, followed by Liverpool with 17,000 and then City with
15,000 (the Millwall game), Arsenal were fourth with 13,000. Spurs, Everton & Newcastle were in the 7-9,000 range.They really
were dark days. What is interesting is that our attendance was recorded in the Second Division where as most of the other big clubs
were in the First Division. If I can find the paper with the full analysis I'll post more detailed information.
Of course, at that time United were the only club to count missing ticket holders in their attendances (pretty well everyone does it now). I remember that the figure actually present at the United v Wimbledon game made the press just afterwards. I can't recall now what the exact number was, but it was certainly well below 20K.
Incidentally, just to be a pedant - the 15,430 against Millwall wasn't the lowest home league gate in 1987/8. There was one that was lower - the 15,172 we drew for a 2-0 win against Reading on Easter Monday: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk/History/Matches/Match.aspx?id=3762" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk/History/ ... px?id=3762</a> - I was born in 1969, and that gate against Reading is the lowest home league attendance in my lifetime (lowest since the dark pre-Mercer/Allison days of 1963/4 of 1964/5, I'm pretty sure).
I'm glad that people are making the point about our gates in this period being decent relative to other clubs, because you get the occasional simpleton on here who, when someone talks about City being well supported through our hard times in the 1980s and 1990s, brings up these figures to dispute the fact. You can root around this site for all kinds of proof that our crowds help up pretty well, all things considered: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm</a>
In 1987/8, our average crowd was 19,472 in a season during which we finished in what at the time was our second lowest league position in the twentieth century. Villa were in the same division that year and got promoted, yet their average was only 18,172 (the previous season, when both teams were relegated from the top flight, we pulled in 21,922 on average while Villa's figure dipped below 16K). The First Division average in the same campaign was around 19,200 - in other words, lower than our crowds in what was a pretty terrible season results-wise in relation to the club's historical standards.
I remember when we played Forest in a League Cup tie in the October of that season (we played superbly to beat them 3-0 and Eric Nixon saved a Stuart Pearce penalty). Forest were third in the top flight when we played them, the game taking place three days after we drew at home to Barnsley in front of 17,063. I remember Brian Clough in the run up to the game talking about what a fantastic support we had to get a crowd like that when we were in the lower half of the old Second Divison. Forest's previous home gate had been in the region of 12K.
Chelsea, meanwhile, between the mid-seventies and mid-nineties had an average that dipped below 20K nine times in two decades. Yes, they spent a few seasons in Division Two (as was) in the seventies and eighties, but their gates held up nothing like as well as ours did after our various relegations in the eighties and nineties.
So these figures may look low when you see them against a backdrop of today's crowds. However, put in context, our attendance record really isn't bad at all.
